Safety systems are known in the prior art. Such safety systems typically include helmets, face shields, steel toed boots, and equivalents. In the prior art, the safety systems are entirely passive, and each safety system absorbs whatever forces and energies that would otherwise injure the user who wears the safety system.
The prior art for non-passive safety systems is limited. There is a U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,769, filed by Baudou et al. and issued on Jan. 18, 2000, that has a limited means to use stored energy which involves reducing the inertial effect of attached mass to a helmet. The disclosed invention is designed to use stored energy to separate a heavy item attached to a helmet during a deceleration event in order to mitigate the inertial effect on the head. The separation energy is not designed to do more than simply isolate the helmet from an attached mass. There is no disclosure to add energy more than is required to separate the masses.
There is a U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,374, filed by Gernstein et al. and issued on Jun. 11, 1996, that discloses the use of stored energy to “deliver impact energy to the shotgun in a direction opposite to that of the recoil energy and at a time that is selected to most effectively neutralize that recoil energy.” The patent discloses creating a force in line with that created by the accelerating bullet that is able to effectively neutralize the kickback. No part of this patent discloses creating forces other than in line with barrel.